Basically they are two methods how to install Linux Core. The first option is to use a Linux Core installation script that comes with tc-install extension. One should take this option as installation process is interactive and automated thanks to the installation script. The second method is manual installation of Core Linux and will be described in the tutorial.

The installation steps provided below have been tested for x86 and x86-64 Linux Core 6.x and they show step-by-step installation on Qemu virtual machine.

If you prefer automated Core Linux installation using an installation script, check this tutorial. Qemu installation on Fedora Linux is shown here.

Linux Core Live x86 and x86-64 ISO images can be downloaded from Tinycore webpage.

Remastering Linux Core For Redirecting Output To Serial Port

This part discuss remastering of Linux Core for redirecting the CLI output to a serial port. Qemu can redirect a serial port of a guest virtual machine to the telnet server that it starts on the host machine. Thanks to it everyone can connect to a virtual machine even the virtual guest is not configured for accepting remote connection (ssh, telnet). This feature is very handy specially in a test environment where security is not an issue.

For example, the Qemu command -serial telnet:0.0.0.0:3000,server,nowait starts a telnet sever on a host machine and redirects a serial port of Qemu guest virtual machine to the server. The telnet server is listening for incoming connection to its IP address with destination TCP port 3000.

Note: Remastering is shown for 32 bit version of Core Linux. Remastering steps for 64 bit Core distribution are identical except that the core64 and vmlinux64 keywords must be used.

Autologin is useful when you do not want prompt user for login credentials. Unfortunately Core Linux hangs up after boot when autologin is in use and output is redirect to a serial port. For this reason we are going to disable autologin for tty1 and ttyS0.

I was able to build a Tiny Core Linux 7.0 image following this guide. The only problem I am facing is that, the output on the serial console doesn't show up until the login prompt is displayed. In your pre-built images, I can see the output right from booting. Can you please provide a hint on how to do that?

Output is sent to serial port during booting when Core is remastered for it. You can see the output of your Qemu Core VM during its boot if you tell Qemu to redirect its output to serial port with this command sequence-serial telnet:0.0.0.0:3000,server,nowait. Then you can simply connect to the serial port with command telnet 127.0.0.1 3000 and you will see the boot process.

I ran the same qemu command on both machines, your machine (linux-core-4.7.7.img) and my machine (nm.img). Your machine directs the output to the serial console from the beginning, while mine waits until the login prompt is displayed. I don't know why.

I am not sure what do you mean by remastering. I have installed Tiny Core using the standard installation tool. I only modified the etc/inittab, etc/securetty, the extlinux.conf and the etc/issue files inside core.gz.